We sponsored a trip to West Africa. We joined with community members and celebrated the election (and inauguration) of the first African American President of these United States. We hosted dignitaries and freedom fighters such as Howard Zinn, Alice Walker, Amy Goodman and Cornell West (to name a few). We started Busboys and Poets Press – to publish works by important authors. We hosted literary giants like George Pelecanos, Marita Golden, Ethelbert Miller, Naomi Klein, and Octavia Butler. We became the sponsoring organization for the DC Slam Poetry team. We hosted poetic giants including: Dennis Brutus, Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez and Martin Espada. We got V Street in North West Washington, re-named to LANGSTON HUGHES WAY. we have demonstrated a commitment to green initiatives including food sourcing using only fair trade coffees and teas, we converted our spaces to use 100% wind energy, we are rapidly moving to match our food sourcing with our values and have recently created a partnership with grayson farms–using free-range, all natural, hormone/antibiotic free beef.

We couldn’t have done any of these things without an amazing staff (hosts, servers, cooks, dishwashers, office staff, managers and YES…busboys) and the many people that grace us every day with their continued presence and support.

In the short five, we have added 2 new Busboys and Poets locations to the family (Shirlington Village in 2007 and 5^th & K, NW in 2008). As we continue to expand we don’t  ever want to forget our core values and our neighborhood focus.  Therefore, we continue to work hard to ensure that all locations are welcoming and stay true to our commitment to social justice and peace – while serving good food at affordable prices.

With your help, our plans for the next five include new, exciting adventures and continued expansion (a Busboys and Poets in Hyattsville, MD is currently under construction, and we are excited about possible opportunities in Harlem).

To show our appreciation for your support and patronage we have planned a week of (mostly) free events.  Please come celebrate with us at any Busboys and Poets location between September 5^th and 12^th…

We couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks!

Let’s meet Beck on Saturday and stand strong against this right wing affront to King’s memory.

See the article below for more information about Beck’s anti-march.

A Dishonor to the Legacy of Dr. King

By Dedrick Muhammad, Research Associate for the Institute for Policy Studies

This year’s anniversary of the historic 1963 March on Washington promises to be one of the more memorable in quite some time. The 47th anniversary of an event is usually not one organizers focus on for a big commemoration but in a few weeks thousands will be in the streets this August 28th commemorating the March on Washington and others will be advancing their own social agenda and publications.

Glenn Beck has called for a national rally on the anniversary of the March on Washington at the exact same location as the historic protest — the Lincoln memorial. The theme of Beck’s rally is “Restoring Honor.” According to Beck’s website this” celebration of America” is supposed to be non-political but has as its primary guest speaker Sarah Palin and has recently been endorsed by the National Rifle Association. From what I can gather America can restore its honor by strengthening individual virtue, come to Washington DC to listen to Beck and Palin, and pick up a copy of Beck’s new book The Plan which is to be launched at this honorable event.

(to read the entire article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dedrick-muhammad/a-dishonor-to-the-legacy_b_692208.html?ref=fb&src=sp#sb=831355,b=facebook )

One has to wonder if framing this construction project as: “the Mosque at Ground Zero” is only meant to inflame passions and generate anti-Muslim sentiment– To well up hatred and prejudice against innocent American citizens because they happen to be followers of Islam.

While President Barak Obama has supported the Muslim community’s right to build the center as a matter of religious freedom, every major potential 2012 GOP White House contender has expressed strong opposition to the project. A prominent GOP pollster has said “It’s a political plus for Republicans if they frame it as an issue with security implications. “This will be one more point in a long litany of points about how the president and the Democratic leadership are out of step with the thinking of most Americans.”

It is clear that Republicans – and some Democrats have made the political calculation that beating up on Islam and Muslims is a winning issue for them in the upcoming elections. All major, mainstream media outlets are now conducting polls and using their so-called results to justify their reports that “the majority of the American people are against building the center.”

Join Busboys and Poets owner Andy Shallal in conversation with Prof. Akbar Ahmed for a discussion about Ahmed’s new book: Journey Into America– The Challenge of Islam. The book is said to be the most comprehensive study ever done on the American Muslim community. Hear from an expert on the Muslim experience in the U.S. and what he has to say about the current debate surrounding the cultural center. (Thursday, 8/19,2010, 14^th Street, 6:00 PM, Langston Room)

If people see injustice, yet, say nothing, do not speak out against it, isn’t that like giving ones approval for it? To protest injustice is not limited to merely speaking against it, protest involves doing something!   

While it is important to speak against injustice, it is also important to act in other ways—ways that are strategically sound.

Freedom lovers, progressives and human rights activists must hold marches and rallies against those who choose war as the resolution to global problems or have committed or supported violations of individual rights or have demonstrated a general contempt for human rights.

Organizing large marches and rallies are among the best ways to make people, and especially the media, take notice, they can also bring new people into the movement against injustice.

On October 2, 2010 the NAACP and One Nation will mobilize tens of thousands of people to march in solidarity at the Nation’s Capitol to call for jobs, quality education for all and reform of the current economic system.

Will you be there?

Like Busboys and Poets, Taharka Brothers understand that food is a social product that brings people together. This cutting edge social enterprise that began as a non-profit employs formerly incarcerated African-American men to make ice cream together with the goal of gaining entrepreneurial training to influence others in the community. Busboys and Poets is proud to be serving Taharka Brothers Ice Cream to further their mission of nurturing young black leaders and serving some of the best handmade, homemade ice cream we’ve ever tasted.

Beginning Monday, August 16, Busboys and Poets as well as our sister restaurant, Eatonville will be serving Taharka Brothers ice cream. Featured flavors will rotate bi-weekly.

Ice Cream flavors include: salty caramel, sweet tea sorbet, vanilla, toasted coconut, key lime pie, chocolate fudge brownie, banana walnut chunk, coffee chip, local peach, black cherry chunk, lemon sorbet, cookies ‘n’ cream, mint chocolate chip, strawberry and more.

From News Guide US:

“
Based in Baltimore, MD, Taharka Bros. Homemade is a 21st century ice cream enterprise that lives out a set of social entrepreneurship values: Generosity, Diversity, Creativity, and Artistry. Concentrating on nurturing Baltimore’s inner-city young men (ages 18 to 22), Taharka Bros., birthed when its founders decided to create a business concern that was cool, fun, and had a direct impact on the community they lived in, is socially engaged and committed to community. Taking its social accountability to the next level, the company builds young leaders by exposing them to the science, production, promotion and sale of its handmade, homemade ice cream. It’s social consciousness returned, authentic action regained, imagination restored, community connection redux, and business reshaped. Taharka Bros. Homemade: The great American ice cream social - remixed as a 21st century social business venture.”

Fentini and The Vince "Grey"

Strongly leaning toward a candidate? Exercise your loyalties by ordering the cocktail named and prepared after your favorite Mayorial candidate.  Still Undecided?  Allow yourself to be swayed by your preferred drink.  The Fentini and the Vince “Grey” will be on the menu from now until the September 14th primary.  We will tally the number of sales on a blackboard at the 14th and V and 5th and K Busboys and Poets locations to help predict the outcome of this heated upcoming election.  Choose a side, choose a drink, and even if you see the guy or gal sitting next to you ordering the one you’re not, remain classy.

A quick rundown of the drinks…

The Vince “Grey” - Gin infused with Numi earl grey tea, lemon juice, simple syrup
Self explanatory for the scholarly Mr. Vincent Gray

Fentini - apple vodka, ginger syrup, cranberry juice, fresh lime juice
The apple underlines the Fenty- Rhee tag team for education reform

It is said that after the explosion, the temperature of the affected place was somewhere around ten million degrees and the light that was emitted was much brighter than the brightness of the sun. The radiations that were emitted were of many types, namely gamma rays, alpha and beta particles that are the normal outcomes of fusion. The emissions make a nuclear bombing more dangerous than they actually are. The survivors and their children suffered from radiation sickness long after the explosion. In case of radiation injuries, first the blood is affected and then the blood producing organs that includes the bone marrow, lymph nodes and the spleen.

I recount these events in such a graphic detail to remind us all we must never forget—further we must work in every way we can to eliminate nuclear weapons from our planet.

(Join us in the Langston Room at 6:00 Monday for a discussion commemorating these horrendous events)

Owner, Andy Shallal and Farmer, Gary Mitchell

Five years ago, Andy Shallal created a company with a mission committed to ethical business practices and social justice. Since it’s opening in 2005, Busboys and Poets has made initiatives to use fair-trade and green products. As a member of Think Local First DC, it has been actively supporting local organizations and businesses, such as Teaching for Change, a local NGO that operates the bookstore.

Primarily a restaurant, Busboys and Poets recognizes that there is no more basic human need than nourishment and that the fact that we must all eat is a common bond uniting humanity. With this idea in mind, the company has taken several initiatives to tackle one of the most pressing ethical issues of our time: food sustainability.

The most significant initiative is the transition from industrially produced corn-fed beef to local, natural, grass-fed beef products from Grayson Natural Farms. This certified humane Angus cattle farm located in Southwestern Virginia is committed to sustainable agriculture practices and operated by local farmers. The cattle are born and raised on Grayson Natural’s family farms. They never receive any antibodies or hormones and are given the opportunity to develop at their natural pace with a grass diet, just like Mother Nature intended. The benefits of grass fed beef are numerous. A recent analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists found that grass fed beef has twice as many heart healthy omega-3 fatty acids as a commercial grain-fed beef. It’s leaner too; almost all cuts of grass fed beef have less total fat that beef from corn-raised cattle.

Yesterday, Busboys and Poets staff and owner, Shallal, visited Grayson Natural. Farmers, Gary Mitchell and Brantley Ivey led the tour and were incredibly warm and proud of the product they were selling. “We’re very confident in our product and we feel good about how we raise our cows,” said Mitchell, “It’s simply the right thing to do.” Ivey, who has conducted some lectures at local universities about the need for sustainable agriculture practices, emphasized the need for the consumer to demand local, sustainable in order for the meat industry to change its wasteful and inhumane ways. 

The role of the consumer was described in a recent author event at Busboys and Poets with David Schwartz. His latest book, “Consuming Choices: Ethics in a Global Consumer Age” underlines the moral consequences of non-local and industrially produced meat consumption. “Growing food is a quintessentially local activity,” Schwartz says, “The primary task [for the consumer] is paying close attention to the source’s of one’s food. How far did it travel to reach me? What methods were used to grow it? Did its production involve significant animal suffering or fossil fuel?” The shift to local, grass fed beef illustrates the “ethical cooperation” between consumer and source that Schwartz describes.

Andy Shallal with Grayson cows

The transition from corn-fed to local, grass-fed beef wasn’t simple. Most of the local farms were unable to produce the quantity of meat necessary for a high-volume restaurant. But even if they were able, there was still the issue of cost. Would a community space that advertises more than half its events as “free and open to the public” have a consumer base willing or able to pay $10.95 for a burger? Initially, we wanted to take a more conservative approach and offer grass-fed but overlook the local part with the reasoning that one could still enjoythe nutritional benefits of natural beef without the local price tag. We began the process searching to import organic beef from across the country and overseas.

After further research, it quickly became obvious that if Busboys and Poets were to remain true to its mission of social responsibility, it had to source locally and sustainably. If we chose to source our meat from New Zealand nearly 9,000 miles would be traveled and one can only imagine the significant carbon footprint inherent to such long haul transportation.

The benefits of pasture-raised beef outweigh the cost. Not only is it healthier for your body, the cattle areraised in a more humane fashion that is also better for the environment. Staying loyal to its mission and the local community, Busboys and Poets remains committed to socially responsible business practices and intends to strengthen its efforts to support local farmers and farms.

Like farmer Mitchell said, “It is simply the right thing to do.”

From time to time – in this space—we will provide  a glimpse into the world of hip hop (DC Style!)    Today we start with Bomani Armah, also known as D’mite, G-Mike or notarapper.  Bomani is a self-identified “poet with a hip-hop style, not a rapper” .  Check him!   Cool Witchu

http://notarapper.wordpress.com/the-music/

Here’s something that you may have missed:

The UN General Assembly on Wednesday (July 28, 2010) recognized access to clean water and sanitation as a human right!

After more than 15 years of contentious debate on the issue, 122 countries voted in favor of a compromise Bolivian resolution enshrining the right. (The United States and 40 other nations abstained).

The language “declares the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life.”

Pablo Solon, Ambassador of Bolivia at the United Nations presented the resolution. Salon is an environmental and social justice activist. Regulars at Busboys may recall that Ambassador Solon gave a briefing at the 5^th & K Street location in March of this year, on the Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change, during which he reminded us of the continued fight over the world’s water supply.

Busboys and Poets applauds Pablo Solon, and all who stand with him in the effort to ensure ALL PEOPLE have (and retain) safe and clean drinking water!